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Sunday, June 28, 2015

Ninety Minutes Later, a Great Breakfast!

After a great church service today (Calvary Chapel Truckee) we headed less than a mile down the road and pulled into Smokey’s Kitchen. (Menu) With the bike race downtown, and having eaten Burger Me twice (and that is good food there), we wanted something good and fast and get back to the puppies. Church was out at 11:35, pulled into Smokey’s at 11:45, had our order in smidgen before 12:00 because they serve breakfast only until 12. See a sign at the register (it is walk-up counter to order, but they bring you the food and refill drinks except coffee which you get yourself) “45 minutes to an hour wait for food to cook, but each plate comes full of Love.”

My first thought, as a person who managed a full service restaurant for 10+ years, “They must be kidding…it can’t be that long!” So I ask, and the lady who just took my money and she says, “Yes, our kitchen is really backed up this morning, but your plates will come full of love!” Ok, this sucker is in….(after all, with the race going on, where else do we go?) So I go to the table where Marcia is sitting and tell her the bad news…”It will be 45 minutes for our food….well, it will be served with a plate full of love.”

So I get our coffee, and get our water. Go back and sit and we talk, she reads all sorts of tourist newspapers and I watch the Yankees playing softball against the Astros. (NYT headline: Yankees Pay the Price for Miscommunicating on Another Routine Fly) Couldn’t have happen to a better team…well, except for the Dodgers, it would have been nice if they lost. And NO, the coffee did not come with a heart in it, but I thought that would be a nice touch.

So for 30-40 minutes I am watching the game, watching what is going on in the restaurant (still a habit after thirty years), and occasional talk with Marcia. That’s about the time she notices a family come in, go up to the counter, turn around and walk out. “Yes,” I said, “there has already been about $250 walk out since we sat down.” Right then a very large party comes in, I figure this could be an easy $150 tab. “Want to bet they walk out?” as they go past us. Minute later, they are walking by us and out the door. Ok, now we are up to $400 lost. For the next twenty minutes we played a game of “WILL THEY OR WON’T THEY?” I am like going out of my mind here….they have 30-35 tables, seat 100+ with the inside and outside seating. Those who have food or have gotten their food are very happy. Those who don’t wait go out hungry still. At 1:15 we finally get our Veggie Omelette and Truckee Omelette, one with Fruit and Rye Toast, the other with Skillet Potatoes and Wheat Toast. And let me tell you, YES, it was GOOD…real GOOD.

Now I did not bring our camera in, and by the time we got our food I did not even think about taking a cell phone picture of it…but the Omelette looked something like this one above. EVERYTHIG was fresh food…real eggs, real mushrooms (not canned) etc. etc. etc.! The Skillet Potatoes were to die for…only wish there was more. And both toasts were real real good…and I don’t like Rye Toast, but this was some good stuff! And, they had Blackberry Jam!

Now WHY it took so long, I cannot answer….never could see into the kitchen. I figure that for every $1,000 per hour rung up, they lost another $500 out the door. A little after 1:00 I went up to the lady at the counter who took our order and asked her to check on it, only because I was afraid it did not get turned in. She assured me that ours was the top ticket, so it would not be long now. She also said that they expected to get hit next weekend (4th of July) but did not expect it today. I don’t think they realized how many people were turned away from downtown’s National Bike Race where there are 3 or 4 food establishments that would have been near impossible to get to.

Boy did we have some happy dogs when we got home….well, two happy dogs who were so happy it seemed like we had a motorhome full of dogs.

4 comments:

I heard her say something about three cooks back there...it could be that they did not have enough food prepped (spinach washed,mushrooms cut, etc) to handle things smoothly. Just could not get a look into that kitchen (darn).

I give them credit for clearly letting people know...and it had a nice hook in there with the "each plate served with love." When we left I noticed the time had shrunk to 30-40 minutes...perhaps eliminating breakfast made it easier back there.

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